


In These Ashes

by mosslover



Series: Darkhawk Romeo & Juliet AU [2]
Category: Poldark - All Media Types, Return to Treasure Island (TV 1996)
Genre: Alternate Ending, But it's there, Contemplation of Suicide, Desperation, Feuding Families, Forced Marriage, Happy Ending, M/M, Romeo & Juliet AU, a major character believed to be dead, brief and non-graphic, how do I even tag this, non-con elements, ross in jail, this is not a happy story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 18:45:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8907748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosslover/pseuds/mosslover
Summary: An alternate ending to "I Ne'er Saw True Beauty Till Tonight".Caught trespassing after spending the night in Jim's room, Ross is sentenced to prison for a month. And it's a long month, considering that in the meantime Jim has to marry John Silver and go live with him. Things deteriorate rather quickly; hope is scant. But not gone altogether.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this alternate version showed up in my head one day a few months ago and wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it. I wasn't going to post it but a few lovely people encouraged me to do so, so here it is, on a random day at 1:30 am :D Don't ask, lol.
> 
> Please heed the tags. This is a Romeo and Juliet story so I don't suppose the warnings are very surprising but there are brief mentions of non-con in there as well as a character considered to be dead. This is a darker version of events. But. I didn't tag Major Character Death for a reason, so... ;)
> 
> Still, the tags might be a mess so please let me know if you think anything needs fixing there ^^
> 
> Fic title is borrowed from Johnnyswim's song "Diamonds".

They take Jim’s angel-wings pendant away from Ross when he's is booked in. 

It goes into a ziploc bag, silver chain included. A sticker with Ross’ name and inmate number gets slapped on it before it is tossed into a plastic basket like a discarded trinket from a town fair. They don’t understand that for Ross, it’s a treasure, a lifeline. He doesn’t say anything of course. Instead, his hand goes to the spot where it used to dangle against his breastbone; for the rest of the day he gropes for it, finding nothing.

Amongst the things he has to accept about his new situation, the absence of the pendant is the hardest by far, even considering the complete lack of privacy, the rough scratch of his issued outfit, the tasteless food, the mind-numbing length of each day with nothing to do except think.

Somehow, miraculously, the first several days pass, but then another one trickles away and it’s Saturday.

And Saturday is judgment day in Ross' world. His heart is in a vice the entire length of it, no matter where he is or what he does or how hard he tries to think of anything else. The privilege of coming from a prominent family had rendered him allocated to a low security prison that is populated with ‘light’ criminals like himself; no heavyweights of the crime world here. He doesn’t really need to watch his back, though it’s still not smart to be distracted.

But there's not helping it. He goes through the day like a man entranced, his thoughts ever elsewhere, with Jim, Jim, Jim….

The wedding. 

He doesn’t sleep at all when the day finally ends, tortured by what his mind doesn’t want to see yet can’t help but portray, the worst, the absolute worst. He is shaky with exhaustion by the time they are shuffled out to breakfast, a plastic orange tray and a dose of soppy cereal, a sticky table and a chair that scrapes against the cracked linoleum of the prison cafeteria. In the corner, a TV. Someone says, ‘look at that sonofabitch Silver’ and Ross lifts his head, and his heart drops.

It’s footage from the ceremony, on the news, Silver in a black suit and Jim, oh…

Ross stares with hungry eyes and he doesn’t even feel his heart for a while, it’s like it’s vacated his chest and left it hollow, gaping. The helplessness of seeing Jim’s tight lips and narrow haunted eyes on the screen is strong enough to almost tip him into a panic attack, but he can’t tear his gaze away, can’t move, can’t escape. 

There’s a close up of Jim, his hair free and curls perfect, yellow and soft and glinting in the sunlight in front of a flower-decorated altar. He is in a black suit also, a pale blue tie that matches his eyes.

His words ring in Ross’ ears: ‘I’d rather die than live with him.’

But live with him seems to be exactly what Jim must now do.

The news program cuts to a report about the pollution on a stretch of the coast and Ross pushes his tray away, feeling as though he is going to be sick. His heart returns, slamming back into his chest and running at too extreme a pace to allow for proper breathing, and it’s like there’s a hand around Ross’ throat, tight and unforgiving. 

It’s done.

Jim’s Silver’s, officially.

 

In an expansive villa perched up in the hills above the sea, outside of town and away from eyes, there is a bedroom on the third floor and in the middle of it, a bed. The covers were meticulously made yesterday, violet and soft and almost weightless, made of a choice fabric that feels like a caress to the skin. 

Now they are thrown about, hanging haphazardly over the edges of the mattress, the top sheet tangled in the middle. Part of its length is draped around a young man’s body; he is sitting in the center of the bed with not a stitch of clothing on, his eyes unseeing as he stares ahead into a wall. The wallpaper covering it depicts a delicate black and white pattern, thin lines crossing and twisting in an ever repeating rhythm.

He doesn’t move for a long while, ignoring the needs of his body, stiff muscles, pain elsewhere. He blinks now and then, slowly and reluctantly, eyelashes fluttering sleepily, but he doesn’t give in to the tug of exhaustion. He sits, and he stares.

A door opens and in walks a man in a luxurious orange robe, a loose knot tied at the front. 

“You are awake,” he states, noting but disregarding the jolt that goes through the blond man on the bed. “That makes things easier.”

The young man lifts his eyes to the other man, expressionless except for a twinge of reluctance in them. “I’m tired.”

“Are you? Well. Maybe you feel that way now,” the man says with a budding smile that holds greed instead of warmth, “but you’re going to be quite a bit more so in a little while.” He sits on the edge of the bed, pulls the sheet off the young man’s body. “Ah, ah, Jim,” he coos when the blond shifts away, and he grasps a knee with an iron strength. “Don’t forget what we discussed yesterday. The cuffs are just an arm's reach away, and so is the gag. But I did so enjoy the sounds you made last night, it would be a shame to have to resort to that.”

Jim grits his teeth, wonders how much longer before something in him breaks. It can’t be that far from now. 

Though it’s alarming to be so close to cracking apart; it’s only been one night.

 

Ten days on the inside and Ross thinks that the soul he carries inside his skin might at any moment become too heavy to bear. The memories it’s filled with are amazing and cruel, revisiting him constantly, but instead of Jim’s happy smile he only ever sees the thin one Jim sported next to Silver during their ceremony. He can’t eat, throat tight and painful; his mother eyes him with concern while sitting across him through her daily visits during which they should speak but barely do. She concludes it’s the environment, reminds him just before leaving how many days are left till he will be out. 

Ross takes that number and takes himself out of the equation; instead he begs for Jim to last that many days.

When Ross is out, he will break the world to get him out of that hell. He will make sure he doesn’t have to endure one more minute of it.

 

Jim thinks of Ross in prison and the thought then strikes him that he in fact is in one as well. To the outside world he looks free, yes, but that is not true. He has not yet left the villa, he hasn’t wanted to even though he can, with guards in tow. His bike is in one of the garages, but the keys are locked and he is too proud to ask for what is rightly his. 

It’s another reason why he’s spent the last two weeks in a stupor, eating and walking and other simple actions becoming habits carried out automatically but without any soul in them. As days go by, he does less and less.

He hides in the shower sometimes, the perfunctory lock on the bathroom door just a token of privacy that offers no real protection, but Silver does have a vast company to oversee so even during their ‘honeymoon’ he does spend some time in his downstairs office. So Jim sits on the floor of the shower stall, eyes trailing each drop of water that hits the tiles opposite him, the clear droplets finding a way down each rough-finished stone square. He wishes to be one of the drops so he could just trickle down into the pipe underneath and pass into oblivion. Then he thinks of Ross again, and of that place inside where he’d told Ross he would store all his memories of their time together and where he would hide while with Silver, but -

He finds he can’t touch that spot under his heart, because he is afraid it would get tarnished if he even so much as peeked inside. And who knows if Ross would still want him anyway, tainted as Jim is now, after days and nights in Silver’s house.

He thinks of Ross, still, always, but it hurts instead of calms, and he hopes, fervently, that it’s true that one can die of a broken heart because he sure as hell doesn’t want to live with it.

 

Demelza comes visit, and each time she sees him, Ross knows he must look more like a shell of his previous self.

“Any news?” he croaks when she asks after his well-being. “Any news of Jim?” It’s been two weeks since the wedding now, the realization a kind of torture in itself.

“There was a gala last night, Silver became an official partner to the Hawkins shipping company,” she says quietly. “There were pictures, Jim was there.”

“And?”

Demelza doesn’t say anything at first, then takes a deep breath and shrugs on the exhale. “He looks about like you do. Worse.”

Ross closes his eyes, the rage inside deafening. 

“I wish I could do something,” she whispers, but Ross just shakes his head.

He misses the glint of an idea in the green pools of her eyes.

After she leaves, the anger takes him completely over for the first time and he hits the bars of his cell until the knuckles of both his hands are a bloody mess, and the guard on duty on his row is not happy with Ross at all, he is livid that he has to deal with that moody Poldark brat and take him to medical and then someone has to alert the family. It’s going to make the guard look bad that he hadn’t stopped it. 

The new pain doesn’t do much to lessen the anguish already present, and Ross lies in his bunk in quiet despair long after the lights had gone out in all the cells, cradling his bandaged hands. He wonders if anyone can bandage Jim’s heart and his, if there is any repairing this at all.

 

 

Jim remembers Demelza vaguely from the engagement party and from Ross’ descriptions of her, so when she brings him food on a tray one day in place of the typical servant, he covers his surprise quickly enough in case the still lingering Silver noticed.

“Where would you like me to put the tray?” she addresses him, and Jim detects a slight tremor in her voice. But then, Silver is intimidating, and he is wrapping his robe around himself at the moment with a satisfied expression and there are fresh bruises on Jim’s thighs. So her nervousness is not as out of place as to give her away.

He waits with the answer until Silver is on the way to the door, past Demelza, leaving without a glance back. “On the bureau is fine,” he says.

“W-would you like me to-” Demelza casts a glance behind herself to watch Silver exit and close the door. “Would you like me to lay the dishes out for you?”

Jim usually sends the servants away as quickly as possible but now he nods, pulling the sheet up to cover the evidence of what had just transpired, looking around for yesterday’s clothes. Demelza’s presence has shocked his system but he has become lethargic enough about his life here that even that shock penetrates slowly through the thick layers of resignation. 

She goes about her ‘job’, arranging the breakfast dishes on the mahogany table under the window. “How would you like your coffee?” she asks. 

“Demelza-”

She sets the porcelain coffee carafe down with a clatter and turns to him. “Jim, I’m so sorry. I can only stay a moment, but I will be back. If you have a message for Ross, have it ready in a twenty minutes-”

“How did you manage-”

“I lied through my teeth, what else. I’m Greta now, and I’ve never stepped foot on the Poldark side of town in my life. Do the eggs look okay?”

“Fuck that, Demel- Greta,” for the first time, Jim feels a semblance of a spark inside, of hope. “Demelza, have you seen Ross?”

“He asked after you,” she says.

“He’ll be out in twelve days-”

“But you won’t. Eat now. And think. We have to get you out.”

Jim almost breaks down at that. Just the merest possibility of escaping here -

He squashes it, too full of incredulity. There is no way, not a permanent one. He’d always be running...

She reads him with ease. “There has to be a way. And we will find it.”

 

 

Three days later, the injured knuckles had healed a little, though they still twinge and throb. Ross counts the days, counts the hours, two hundred eighteen until he can get out of here and do whatever it takes to get to Jim, to wrest him out of the nightmare.

Demelza comes and brings him a message; he reads the few simple words penned down with haste. 

_Ross-_  
I can hear the sea from my bedroom and it makes me think of you - that night we talked on the beach till almost sunrise. It seems like so long ago, some days it’s like it’s never happened. If I touch that place inside me where you are, I’m afraid you will disappear from there and you are the only thing that keeps me going so I can’t risk that.  
I want nothing but you even if it had been stupid to have believed this would work.  
You’re getting out soon. I hope they treat you well… and I hope you find some kind of a life after - I wish we could have found one together. But Whatever happens, we had those few days, those few hours and even if there is never anything more, even if i don’t ever see you again… It was everything, you must know that.  
I hate him so fucking much, Ross, i think it might suffocate me any moment now.  
I love you so much more than I hate him - I love you.  
-J. 

Ross reads it again and again, until all he wants to do is tear through the paper and hold Jim, but all he has of him now are a few scribbled words. Demelza says, “I’m trying to figure something out, I faked an ID and I’m working in Silver’s house now, but I will need time.”

He wants to hug her, immensely grateful, and it takes all his restraint to not press her to hurry and get Jim out fast. She already knows.

He tucks that letter close, under his shirt, and it rubs against his skin with every move, a reminder of something that’s already on his mind all the time. 

He writes a letter to Jim in response, barely aware of what he’s actually saying, just feeling, feeling. He sends it off, like a piece of his heart torn from within and stretched in thin inky lines over a scrunched up sheet of paper. In his bunk, he closes his eyes, but all he sees is the top of Jim’s bowed head. He can’t see his eyes. He wishes he would go mad already.

 

Jim can’t quite keep Ross’ letter close to his body at all times. It bothers him, but just the fact that it exists - it gives him the encouragement he sorely needs. He knows that Demelza is trying to find the means of escape and he is trying to work out the same thing incessantly.

But it’s not that easy to find a foolproof plan. It takes time. He and Demelza only speak sporadically, once a day, over fancy breakfast dishes. Sometimes Silver is still there and they can only exchange covert looks, later, come by, can you sneak down to the kitchen?

One of those mornings Jim’s hurt boils over and he lashes out at Silver. Afterwards, whatever inner pressure he’d released during the outburst returns back tenfold. His display of anger seemed to have only amused Silver, but Jim can’t escape the feeling that he’ll pay for it later. 

He hopes his parents sleep well at night, congratulating themselves on what a clever match they’d made for him. Demelza keeps saying she’ll get him out soon, that she has an outline of a plan, but he thinks that another hour is all he can take. 

He sits in the corner of the room, picking at a peeled-back piece of wallpaper, and if he’d had a lighter or a match, he’d set this whole room on fire.

 

Ross has two days to go. Fifty-three hours. It’s time for mail and a guard stops in front of Ross’ cell. “A letter for you, Poldark,” he says, waving an envelope. “Probably from that red-haired chick that always comes here. She sweet on you?”

It’s a tease and power display and Ross declines to answer. He wants the letter, Demelza hadn’t been able to come by anymore and he needs news desperately, but just as desperately he doesn’t want to show it.

His lack of response riles the guard. “I’m still not happy with you, Poldark. I got a haranguing from my boss for letting you hurt your precious self. So maybe until you learn some manners, you are not getting this letter.”

Ross frowns. “You can’t do that.” What if there’s another message from Jim in there?

“I think I can,” the guard leers. “Mail is a privilege, not a right.”

“Give me my fucking letter,” Ross growls.

But the guard grins openly now, looking over his shoulder as he walks away. “Manners, Poldark! You can try again later.”

Ross seethes for the rest of the day, but the guard doesn’t come back, and then the shifts change.

 

That night Jim lies on the bed and there’s a hand around his throat, just on the verge of too tight, as Silver thrusts into him deliberately slow. Jim hates the terror that has to be showing in his eyes but he doesn’t have the capacity to hide it and when it’s finally over and he can breathe properly again, he cradles his throat and sucks in gulping breaths, no thought left for pride or dignity. He knows Silver is watching him but he can’t quite calm down.

Silver says something and then leaves and it takes Jim a long while to get back onto his feet. He cleans himself up and dresses in old jeans and today’s shirt. It's rumpled but it won’t matter what he looks like when they find him, it’s not like he will be aware. He thinks of the vial hidden inside his sock drawer and he hopes to heavens that it will be painless. He listens to the sea beating against the cliff outside; it seems always louder at night, a reminder of home, of Ross, of a few days filled with the intense spark of love.

Ross should have gotten the letter by now.

Jim rummages around the back of the drawer, then uncorks the small bottle and tips the contents into his mouth.

 

Ross sits in the cafeteria at noon the next day. The guard who had his letter has not returned yet. Someone else is doing the rounds. Ross scowls, thinks of his impending release, thinks of Jim, of what he could possibly do to get to him. 

Then someone says, “fucking shit, look at the TV”, and someone else gapes, “can you fucking believe it?”

 

Ross looks up; there’s no sound as the TV is always on mute but the words at the bottom of the screen are easy to read. “HAWKINS HEIR, NEW HUSBAND TO MAGNATE SILVER, FOUND DEAD.” The camera shows an aerial view of a splendid mansion seated among cliffs, a throng of emergency vehicles filling the front courtyard and… 

Ross’ heart lurches to a violent stop.

Smaller letters underneath add in an endless loop: _‘Jim Hawkins-Silver appears to have committed suicide, no persons of interest have been named at this time’_. 

The letters blur as Ross reads them. In the next camera take he can make out a stretcher, covered with a white sheet, being wheeled out of the front door of the house and into an ambulance. But already the floor is dropping away under Ross, the room spinning with him.

No… it can’t be...

_I’d rather die…_

Jim, no…

Ross has hated the constant pain before but now he’d almost welcome it because in its place there is an all-encompassing void and it stretches and expands inside him and he can’t stop staring at the screen though he can barely see anything. 

He tries to stand up from his chair, get away from the crowded room before his body tries to vomit out that horrid emptiness - it surely can’t be possible to contain it? - but his knees don’t carry him and he collapses. Everyone turns to stare at him and he wonders which guard he is going to piss off now.

Not that it matters.

The only thing that mattered was Jim, and Jim - is dead.

 

Later in medical someone stops by, says Ross has a visitor. Ross tries to sit up but they’ve given him something and the room spins even worse. Sedatives? What happened?

Jim’s tight smile flashes before his eyes and then an older image, of happy, laughing, breathless Jim, the dark angel -

Ross wavers as everything rushes back in, and he is pushed back onto the bed. 

“Tell them to come later. He can’t handle visitors right now.”

The prison doctor is matter of fact, doesn’t ask what is going on, just gives Ross another injection.

He sleeps.

When he wakes up, they return his things to him. Ross stares at Jim’s pendant and it’s like a cruel joke now. It goes over his head nonetheless, settling in the familiar place, over the emptiness inside Ross where his heart used to be.

A few steps, then the door to the outside world gets unlocked. This moment has been all that Ross had his eyes set on.

Now he doesn’t know what do with himself.

He clutches at the pendant. A lifeline -

He nearly suffocates, trying to hold back a scream.

 

He goes home with his parents, sparked-out and numb. The news is everywhere. His parents mention Jim between the weather and the price of copper. The funeral was earlier today, Jim’s mother has fainted during the ceremony, Silver had looked composed but regretful.

Now rain is coming down outside, sheets and sheets, loud, the sound inescapable.

Demelza is nowhere to be seen and when Ross tries to call her, her line appears disconnected. His parents have no idea where she is; she hasn’t been around for a few weeks.

Crazed, he doesn’t know how he’d gotten through the day. His parents give him concerned looks, baffled at their son’s medical troubles from the day before, unsure why instead of being happy to be out of jail he is suddenly crestfallen, beside himself with a strange grief. They give him space to sort it out and when they leave for a dinner with a business partner, Ross’ mother asking five times if it’s okay to leave him, Ross steals into his father’s bedroom and takes his revolver. 

He scales the wall to the wrong side of town again, but instead of hoping to find Jim’s room, he hopes to find Jim’s grave.

 

He still can’t believe it. But the letters don’t lie: 

_Here lies Jim Hawkins, married Silver; beloved son, brother, and husband. May he find peace._

The cemetery is empty. Rain is still coming down in the amassing dusk and Ross sits facing the headstone, his gaze tracing Jim’s name over and over.

When the emptiness fills him to the last fiber of his being, when he can’t bear the thought of Jim so close, separated from Ross by a yard of freshly piled earth, when he thinks of Jim’s face lifeless and his brilliant laugh snuffed out forever, he places the angel’s wings pendant on the grave’s wet marble and pulls out the gun, releasing the safety and setting the mouth of the barrel at his own temple.

The world in which there is no Jim is no world for Ross; he can’t possibly face such a place for the rest of his life. Unless he cuts that life short; then he won’t have to endure it anymore. He wishes he could touch Jim one more time, feel the softness of his skin under his hand, he wishes he could heal whatever wounds, inside and out, Silver had inflicted. But it’s all useless thinking because there is nothing he can do for Jim anymore, it had been too much and Jim will never kiss him again, he has no more stars above his eyes, he is the stars.

So Ross looks up at the sky, thinking Jim is somewhere up there above the clouds as well as a few feet below, and he feels surrounded by his presence, feels close to him again all of a sudden. 

His finger trembles on the trigger and the gun wobbles against his temple, cold and hard, unforgiving. He takes a deep ragged breath, thinks he hears a voice but it must be his bereft mind playing tricks.

His hair drips wet and he closes his eyes, determination welling up in him. His index finger twitches and any second now, he will find the final speck of motivation, the sound will ring out - will he even hear it -?

“Ross!” A scream behind him, this time for real. Ross jerks in surprise and the gun goes off-

“NOOOO! Ross!!” 

He hears mad thud of footsteps behind him and for a moment, there is so much adrenaline rushing through him he has no idea if he is alive or dead, if he shot himself or missed or what, and the gun falls out of his nerveless fingers. Then hands are on him, frantic; he blinks through the rain and sees red hair, Demelza’s green eyes, wide in mortal fear. 

“Ross!!!! Judas! Did you hurt yourself? Are you out of your mind-”

He gulps in breaths, still in shock, as she feels all over his body for a wound, for blood, but can’t find any. She sags on the ground with a sob. “I think you’re fine, thank GOD, Ross-”

“What are you doing here?” he blurts out, panting harshly. “Where have you been?”

“What do you mean, where have I been?! We’ve been waiting for you but you never showed, didn’t you get my letter?”

“No!” he says. “I saw it, but the fucking guard never gave it to me!”

“He never- oh judas-” she makes a sound, somewhere between a gasp and a desperate laugh, and it’s as unhinged as he’d ever seen her. She clutches at her chest. “So you don’t - oh jesus, Ross, you thought- you-”

Another sound comes from behind them, like a car door slammed, and Demelza’s head whips around. Someone else’s sprinting steps splatter behind Ross’ back and there’s something in Demelza’s face that makes Ross’ heart pause on the threshold of hope unimaginable. He turns and at first, his mind has trouble processing what his eyes are telling him because he'd sunk all of his dreams in the ground below the stone slab in front of him. 

But the person flying through the rain towards them has terrified blue eyes and blond hair dark with rain-

“Jim!?” he croaks, his own eyes growing wide, his heart suddenly hammering madder than ever.

He has no idea that he is already crying, tears mixing seamlessly with rain on his cheeks. And he thinks, of all the moments that had nearly done him in over the last month, this might be the one when his heart finally gives out.

He barely has time to stand up before Jim is upon them, muddy and soaked, a thousand emotions in his face but most of all he's alive, unbelievably, amazingly. Ross has no chance to speak as Jim slams into him, crushing him in an embrace that nearly knocks them back down to the squelching ground.

He returns the hug with desperate strength. “Oh god, Jim, you’re - you're alive - I -”

Jim sobs into his hair, then presses his lips against the pulse in Ross’ throat. “Ross, oh fuck, you scared me, what possessed you?!” he says, and Ross tightens his hold on him, inhaling warm wet skin. “I scared YOU?!” he exclaims. “I thought - I saw the news - I thought you were-”

“He didn’t get the letter,” Demelza explains to Jim, still sounding as though she’s on the verge of losing her nerve. 

“Oh jesus, Ross,” Jim says, pushing away from him so he can look in his face. “That’s not how we planned it, you were supposed to know, you were supposed to meet us tonight, we waited and waited until Demelza thought to come by here just in case - I’m sorry-”

“I don’t care anymore, you’re alive,” Ross says, running a thumb over Jim’s freckles. “You’re alive and away from there-”

“You almost-” Jim glances at the gun on the ground. “You almost shot yourself.”

“But I didn’t,” Ross says and a wave after wave of relief sweeps through him when he thinks how close he’d come to making a fatal mistake. “How did you - how did you fool everyone?”

Demelza seems to have found her balance again, sounding resolute when she interjects: “We need to get away from here, now. No one can see Jim, least of all here. First we find a safe place and then you two can talk.”

 

Demelza drives, being the least shaky of them all, and Ross has no idea where they are heading nor does he care, because Jim is tucked next to him, his blond hair damp against Ross’ face and their fingers laced. A warm grateful glow spreads through him, but then worry starts to emerge as well, about the past month. 

But Jim doesn’t say anything about his life in Silver’s house yet, he only speaks of the poison Demelza discovered on the black market, of how Jim took just enough to put himself into a death-like state in which his pulse and breath were nearly undetectable, how Demelza followed Jim to the funeral parlor and bribed the director for silence with all the money her and Jim could get their hands on. 

“The director told Jim’s family that when the poison started breaking down, it would cause discoloration and accelerate decomposition so they wouldn’t be able to display Jim’s body,” Demelza says. “The guy was amenable enough, he was no friend of Silver’s, but it’s still not safe to hang around. The sooner Jim disappears the better.”

Ross tightens his hold around Jim’s shoulders. “In that case, I'm going with you.”

 

Later, in a hotel room outside the city, Demelza deflects all the thanks Ross lavishes on her, extricating herself from his grateful embrace and pointing out that they need to discuss their options. When they decide, Demelza takes a taxi back to Ross’ car, so she can send it over a cliff to make it look like Ross drove himself into the water in despair.

Which means Ross can’t go back home. They are well and truly stranded, the four walls of the room their only refuge from the world they know. They lie on the bed and Ross’ mind is still reeling from the events of the night, heart not slowing down even now. Jim has dark circles under his eyes, he looks deathly tired now that Ross can properly see him. Once or twice, he has to put a hand over Jim’s heart to assure himself that there is still a rhythm punching away in there. The last time he does it, Jim is dozing off and he startles awake at the touch, for a moment looking like he might bolt.

Then he relaxes, a look of shame passing over his face. The reality of what Jim’s married life must have been like comes back to Ross, floods him full of concern and trepidation. “Jim,” he says. “After the wedding -”

Jim bites into his lip until it’s bloodless. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you, but not tonight, I can’t.”

“You don’t have to. I’m sorry - sorry that the place your created didn’t work,” Ross whispers, and he is at once afraid to touch Jim and at the same time, desperate to offer him some comfort. He pulls the letter from Jim from under his shirt.

Jim glances at it, then at Ross. “You still have it?”

“Of course I do. I read it so many times, I know how you shaped each letter, I stared at it so much I thought it might catch fire.”

“That wouldn’t actually surprise me, with those intense eyes of yours,” Jim smiles. “They’re what I first noticed about you, that night in the garden… You stormed in with your brooding eyes and changed everything.” 

“Not everything. It wasn’t enough.”

“It was, in the end.” Jim squeezes Ross' hand before dozing off again.

 

They've never shared a bed for simply sleeping before, and at first Jim doesn’t touch Ross at all, staying firmly on his own half. At some point in the middle of the night he shifts up to the other occupant though, so Ross takes courage and presses his mouth into Jim’s hair, breathing him in again, emotions racking through him. Half asleep, Jim looks up, and to Ross’ horror his eyes are awash with tears. 

“Jim?” he whispers.

Jim shakes his head. “I’m fine. Just - I need to get away from here. As far as possible. I need to put this behind me. Behind us.”

“You want to leave right now?” Ross asks, making to sit up.

“No, in the morning,” Jim says. “In the morning’s fine.”

“Okay,” Ross nods, relaxes back down. “Whatever you want.”

“I want you to kiss me,” Jim says. “I want to feel you.”

“Are you sure?” Ross takes one of Jim’s long locks, pushes it off his forehead, takes his time caressing it with his fingers. “Jim, after last month-”

“I need you to erase it, I need you to erase what happened,” Jim urges. “Please.”

Ross puts a hand on Jim’s jaw, light as the breeze and ever ready to lift at the first sign of discomfort. He leans forward, aware that Jim isn’t closing his eyes and instead watching him with bated breath. Then Ross gives in to the pull and their lips meet, a feather-soft, lingering touch between them that lasts until Jim presses forward, his hand on Ross’ arm tugging. Ross listens to Jim’s breathing, lets him decide what kind of contact and how much he wants.

They sleep again, Jim’s arms wound around Ross and Ross shielding him with his body. He thinks maybe that happiness is this, it hurts but he's holding it in his hands and it’s all he will ever need.

Not that it will be that easy; one kiss, however long and tender, won’t erase a month of abuse or the guilt that eats at Ross. They have to find a way to live with it. 

It would take sweat and tears and time but they would get there.

A knight and an angel - broken but free.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I would much appreciate thoughts on this...  
> Much love <3


End file.
